'Though the internet may be the purest expression of modern technology, it also encourages the basest forms of human behaviour.' Photograph: Eye Candy / Rex Features

Two weirdly similar news stories came out last week, but with strikingly different endings. Both involved reports of American college kids sexually humiliating fellow students, and both demonstrated that, though the internet may be the purest expression of modern technology, it also encourages the basest forms of human behaviour. Yet while one story ended with two people being charged with several counts of privacy invasion, the perpetrator in the other story has been feted by the literary world.

The terrible story of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi, who committed suicide after his room-mate, Dharun Ravi, reportedly felt compelled to tweet his thoughts about Clementi's sexuality, and switched on a webcam to catch any possible – snigger – hot gay lovin', prompted, quite rightly, universal disgust and shock that such ignorant homophobia could apparently be found at a reputable university (although perhaps one could also glance rightwards at the Tea Party movement, which is doing its best to legitimise homophobia in America).

But while Ravi and his friend Molly Wei face possible jail sentences if convicted, they might console himself by thinking that, really, they were surfing quite a trend with cyber-bullying. In terms of sheer idiocy, a gentleman by the name of Andrew Shirvell, the assistant attorney general for the state of Michigan, arguably managed to best Ravi, if only by being an adult as opposed to a teenager.

Shirvell spent much of last week defending his blog, Chris Armstrong Watch (his interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper is highly recommended viewing, as an illustration of prissy self-delusion). The blog details to a degree that can only be described as obsessive the movements of 21-year-old Chris Armstrong, the University of Michigan's student president, who Shirvell claims is pushing a "deeply homosexual agenda". This "radical agenda" includes such deeply homosexual plans as "extending the hours of the university cafeteria". Shirvell, after condemnation in the press, has now taken leave of absence from his job.

Judging by such recent events, some might think the internet was invented purely for puerile, sexual bullying. Indeed, according to the upcoming film The Social Network, the early prototype of Facebook was a programme Mark Zuckerberg created to compare the hotness or otherwise of female students. This is portrayed by the film as further evidence to its contention that Zuckerberg is emotionally stunted and untrustworthy.

All of these stories were discussed extensively in the US press last week, which makes the trajectory of, and reaction to, the next tale all the more baffling. At the end of last week – just when Clementi's body was formally identified, just when Shirvell began his leave of absence, and just when The Social Network opened in US cinemas – another instance of cyber-sexual idiocy came to light.

A recent graduate from Duke University – who, somehow, has managed to retain her anonymity – decided to help future female students by compiling something called a "Fuck List". On it, she detailed, in anatomical detail, the sexual skills of various male students. Accompanying each profile were photos of the young men.

To be fair to the list's author, she never intended her oeuvre to be seen by anyone other than the people she sent it to, but, as Ravi and Shirvell also discovered last week, trying to contain information on the web is like attempting to build a house out of water. Inevitably it went viral, helped in no small amount by the normally sensible feminist website, jezebel.com, which reprinted the list in full with the photos, blurred but clearly identifiable to anyone who ever met the men.

Beneath a reprinted page from the list discussing the "subjects' hardware", jezebel.com claimed, admiringly, that this is "another reminder that women can be as flip, aggressive or acquisitive about sex as men can". True, the website admits, these men "did not consent to have their performances publicly evaluated. But there you go." There we go indeed, looking at photos of young male college students and reading about their disappointing hardware.

Maybe I missed a couple of classes at school, but I'm struggling to see how this differs much from Ravi gleefully tweeting "I saw [my roommate] making out with a dude. Yay." But others have no trouble making the distinction, because jezebel.com was promptly contacted by literary agents and editors, eager to meet the author of this example of "self-empowerment".

Now, granted, feminism is about equality between the sexes – intellectually, professionally, sexually – but this does not mean that when a woman behaves as badly as the worst kind of male doofus she is a feminist icon. Feminism is not about lowering the collective bar; it's about raising it. It is not an umbrella under which self-abasement, cruelty and hypocrisy can claim shelter. But then, as I said, modern technology was, I thought, supposed to expand human intellect, not merely become another platform for the most reductive form of bullying.

The cyber element to all of the above stories is, really, secondary. Humans in general and teenagers in particular have always found ways to humiliate one another. Just as cyber-bullying is merely bullying with more expensive equipment, so sexual humiliation by a woman of straight men is still sexual humiliation. The machines may get fancier, the justifications more ridiculous and self-deluding, but human nature, for better or worse, still trumps all. Just don't be blinded by the fancy packaging.